sty's health by
the name of Kihiargo, which was the nearest imitation they could produce
of King George.

About this time died an old woman of some rank, who was related to
Tomio, which gave us an opportunity to see how they disposed of the
body, and confirmed us in our opinion that these people, contrary to the
present custom of all other nations now known, never bury their dead. In
the middle of a small square, neatly railed in with bamboo, the awning
of a canoe was raised upon two posts, and under this the body was
deposited upon such a frame as has before been described: It was covered
with fine cloth, and near it was placed bread-fruit, fish, and other
provisions: We supposed that the food was placed there for the spirit of
the deceased, and consequently, that these Indians had some confused
notion of a separate state; but upon our applying for further
information to Tubourai Tamaide, he told us, that the food was placed
there as an offering to their gods. They do not, however, suppose, that
the gods eat, any more than the Jews supposed that Jehovah could dwell
in a house: The offering is made here upon the same principle as the
temple was built at Jerusalem, as an expression of reverence and
gratitude, and a solicitation of the more immediate presence of the
Deity. In the front of the area was a kind of stile, where the relations
of the deceased stood to pay the tribute of their sorrow; and under the
awning were innumerable small pieces of cloth, on which the tears and
blood of the mourners had been shed; for in their paroxysms of grief it
is a universal custom to wound themselves with the shark's tooth.
Within a few yards two occasional houses were set up, in one of which
some relations of the deceased constantly resided, and in the other the
chief mourner, who is always a man, and who keeps there a very singular
dress in which a ceremony is performed that will be described in its
turn. Near the place where the dead are thus set up to rot, the bones
are afterwards buried.

What can have introduced among these people the custom of exposing their
dead above ground, till the flesh is consumed by putrefaction, and then
burying the bones, it is perhaps impossible to guess; but it is
remarkable that AElian and Apollonius Rhodius impute a similar practice
to the ancient inhabitants of Colchis, a country near Pontus in Asia,
now called Mingrelia; except that among them this manner of disposing of
the dead did not exten